


Oily Shadows

by PancakeBeast



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Dreams vs. Reality, Epilogue, F/M, Gen, Nightmares, Recovery, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-17
Updated: 2013-06-04
Packaged: 2017-12-14 01:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/831016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PancakeBeast/pseuds/PancakeBeast
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Earthborn Ruthless Paragade femshep, Shakarian, post-ME3, personal interpretation of Destroy. Rescue, recovery, reunion, rebuilding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Tags, character list, warnings, and rating will probably change over time.

Shepard inhaled sharply.

She could not feel anything. She couldn't even think, at first. Her first thought, staggering through her mind half-formed, was to wonder whether she was alive. It took her what felt like an incredibly long time to realize that if she was thinking at all, she must be alive. That realization was almost amusing, but relief and confusion took over.

The last thing she remembered was...light. Beam. If there was such a thing as a sickly shade of blue, that beam had been it. Now she realized that this was the second time she'd made that observation; the first time, she had been limping across the Catalyst platform. The beam and its promise of true peace had been tempting, and she had looked back at it on her way to the...whatever it was she had shot to trigger the Reapers' destruction. Ever a sniper at heart, even with one hand shaking and the other holding her guts in, she had taken the shots from the right-hand ramp. If there was any chance for her to survive whatever came next, she was damn well going to maximize that chance. Generally, in her experience as a fancy-ass soldier, shooting conduits resulted in explosions and explosions were bad.

_Okay,_ she thought. _So where the hell am I now?_  Her eyes were still closed, so she opened them. It was painful to do even that much, and her effort was rewarded by a trickle of blood getting into her left eye. Blinking reflexively and trying to turn her head, she gradually became aware of more of her body. With awareness came pain and an involuntary groan, but she welcomed every raw sensation as a sign that she really wasn't dead. Not dead yet, anyway. Depending on where she was, air might soon be in short supply, and that was if her injuries didn't get the better of her.

All she could see was rubble, and through vision blurry and bloody she couldn't even tell what kind of rubble it was. There was a dim, cold light coming from somewhere, but she could still only move her head bit by tiny bit, so searching for the source was slow, strenuous work.

_Wherever I am, there's no exposure to vacuum. No way I'd still have any air if... Good news then. I'll take any good news._

It was just as well that she couldn't find the strength to move any more than her head. Movement might disturb the rubble and bring it down. Then again, being able to grab a pack of medigel would be nice right about now.

Finally she saw the source of the light. It was coming through a gap in the rubble above her and to her left, and she couldn't see into the gap itself without being able to lean in that direction. A large piece of metal twisted beyond recognition lay beside her in such a way that she couldn't just scoot her head to the side: she'd have to raise her whole torso and then lean over the metal to get a proper look at the gap. So, one of the only visual clues to her location was a bust for now.

Shepard turned her attention to sound. There was an odd lack of it. A possible reason for that floated at the edge of her thoughts for a moment—something about the explosion—but she couldn't quite focus. She was starting to feel faint.

_Not good..._

 

* * *

 

 

There were sounds now, far away and almost inaudible. Light suddenly flooded in, stabbing at her nerves even though her eyes were once again closed. The light wavered and flickered as if—

She remembered sitting under a tree, the sun winking between the leaves as they swayed in a breeze. It had been a scrappy streetside tree in a poorer part of Mumbai, but it looked good that spring.

Instincts brought her back to the present and urged her to open her eyes, to see what was going on. She complied, though the light hurt even more when her eyelids parted. A figure gradually came somewhat into focus, silhouetted. Turian, she recognized after a long moment.

Garrus. He'd been evac'd onto the Normandy just a few minutes ago. Or was it hours? The more she tried to think, tried to pin down a timeframe, the more it felt like a lifetime had passed since anything real had happened. Everything after she had last seen Garrus was dreamlike, swimming around in the back of her mind like a half-recalled nightmare.

Suddenly Garrus was right next to her, examining her, and she tried to speak to him but her lips were stuck together and she wasn't getting enough air anymore.

 

* * *

 

 

When she woke up again, there was overwhelming pain. She was only awake long enough to notice that she was being carried by—a turian she didn't know. Garrus was nowhere to be seen, at least not within her limited field of view. Most of what she could see was the night sky, Earth's night sky, clouded with so much smoke that only a few stars were visible. Actually, it didn't look all that different from the pollution-choked sky she'd been used to in childhood. The resemblance was only noticed subconsciously; just before blackness returned she remembered climbing buildings in search of a spot where she could see more stars through the smog.


	2. Chapter 2

Initially remembering nothing beyond running for the beam, Shepard once again woke disoriented and groggy.

Muffled sounds surrounded her. She tried to get up, but there was so much stiffness and pain that the best she could do was lift her head for a second. Her oldest friend, adrenaline, did not come to help.

_Have to...get to the beam..._

_Sitting duck out here..._

_Can't stop now... Damn it..._

One of the sounds grew closer and she recognized it as a voice. Male. Words indistinct.

_They need me to move!_

She tried again, fighting to turn over and get her legs under her. Her body refused to cooperate and soon there was another problem: something pressing down on her shoulders, something like hands—

She opened her eyes and saw a husk. Instinctively she guessed the voice had been a soldier calling for help or trying to warn her as the husk approached. It was leaning over her, holding her down, about to attack.

Her right arm came up to strike the husk with an omni-blade, but fell short and dropped back to her side. It felt so heavy and weak. And, to her very unpleasant surprise, her omni-tool had not even activated.

_No no no no fuck no—_

 

* * *

 

The Illusive Man stood before the Catalyst and won.

He was losing the war, of course. He was doing exactly what the Reapers wanted. He couldn't stop the cycle, he couldn't possibly dominate the Reapers. The "choice" offered by the Catalyst, which—let's not forget—was itself a Reaper in a way, was surely just a trap. At least, that's what Shepard believed. Obviously the Illusive Man believed differently. Even now he was acting out of a kind of idealism. But he was also indoctrinated.

Shepard hadn't been able to stop him; he had defeated her. That was why she saw him standing there...wasn't it? She had failed her mission, had crumpled to the floor beside Anderson while Hackett called to her over the comm. Hackett and everyone else had been counting on her and she had failed. She didn't even know what to do, how to activate the Crucible. That was why the Catalyst showed her what to do.

But...if the Catalyst had showed _her_ what to do...

Anderson had died, but she'd seen him on the Catalyst platform too, shooting the same conduit that she shot.

She remembered both of them using the Catalyst but she also remembered both of them laying on the floor dead.

 

* * *

 

In the echoes of the Catalyst's voice, Shepard thought she could hear her own voice. It was very distorted, but there was something inescapably familiar about it. Both of their voices echoed, and she couldn't tell whether the echo was real or whether it was inside her head. When the Catalyst showed her how to use the Crucible, her suspicion that it was not just reading her mind but also touching it was confirmed. Surrounded by Reapers and Reaper tech, she could barely trust herself. Everything was suspect. She clung to her original mission: destroy the Reapers. There was no way to be sure that doing what the Catalyst showed Anderson doing would work, but she had no choice: the Crucible had to be used. Since no one knew exactly what the Crucible would do, how it would do it, or how to activate it, all Shepard could do was shoot the damn conduit as instructed by the damn Catalyst. It was that or sit down in the middle of the platform and agonize over the assumptions that act required while Sword, Shield, and Hammer continued taking losses.

 

* * *

 

Oily shadows slithered through her mind and encroached on her vision, squeezing until her finger squeezed the pistol's trigger.

They made her put a bullet in the only man who had ever been anything like a father to her.

 

* * *

 

After the second nightmare, she had recalled the rachni queen's words: _"Oily shadows and sour yellow notes."_ She began to worry that she was being indoctrinated. According to what had been learned about indoctrination so far, slow and subtle produced the best results. Best for the Reapers.

If that was what was happening, she decided, there was nothing she could do about it but rely on her crew to keep her on the straight and narrow.

But she had been alone with the Catalyst. Alone with the final decision.


	3. Chapter 3

The beam spat Shepard out into what looked like a set for a horror movie. Except the bodies piled all around were real—she could tell by the smell. They hadn't started putrefying yet, of course, but there was blood and emptied bowels and the dried sweat of people who had died terrified. Dim red light bathed the scene—low-power lighting for emergencies and disused areas, probably, but unnerving under the circumstances.

Anderson's voice over the comm was most welcome.

A couple of keepers stood among the bodies. Concentrating on getting to her feet and crossing the room, Shepard didn't see exactly what the keepers were doing, but she guessed they were the ones making these piles. They must have fallen under Reaper control when the Reapers came close enough to the Citadel to stop relying on the long-range signals that were no longer recognized by the evolving keepers. This place looked too much like the Collector base.

As Shepard trudged forward, the end of the room seemed to get farther away. The shadows seemed to grow deeper. She paused and shook her head, shutting her eyes for a second.

_Trick of the light. Or maybe I'm seeing things. Concussion?_

She opened her eyes expecting her vision to have cleared.

Now the tubes along the walls were pulsing like veins and the bodies closest to Shepard were writhing slowly. Normally even the gruesome works of the Reapers weren't enough to truly rattle her, but suddenly there was fear in her heart. The room felt too narrow and she was keenly aware of how close her feet were to the squirming corpses. As if to meet that awareness halfway, hands began reaching out of the body piles.

Shepard started forward again, trying to move quickly.

The shadows stretched closer.

She hadn't heard from Anderson for a while.

Something brushed her leg as she hobbled forward with an increasing sense of urgency.

Finally she seemed to be closing the distance to the door, but the darkness around it was so deep that it looked as if it was disappearing. Soon she could no longer see it at all, but as there was only one way to go she couldn't really lose the door.

Wet, fleshy rustling sounds pursued her. She didn't look back. Once she got through that door, it wouldn't matter what Reaper horrors were behind her.

She lifted her right arm, holding her omni-tool out ahead in case the door wasn't automatic. It had to be close by.

Her hand collided with a solid, smooth surface. For an instant she almost panicked. Hurriedly she felt along the surface, searching for an interface or a control panel or a seam, but there was nothing. It was a wall. There was no door here.

Panic resurged. The _things_ were so close now she could feel their shuffling, inhuman movements displace the air.

"You did good, child," rasped Anderson over the comm.

_No! NO! The Citadel's arms aren't even open! I have to—_

A cold hand touched her arm and she screamed in defiant anger, swatting the hand away and struggling to sit up.

The thing spoke to her, barking words she couldn't understand. Its jaw fell off. She fought it, and the others as they came, slashing at them with her omni-blade. After a couple of swings she realized the blade was passing right through them harmlessly. Frustration boiled within her, muting the thought that this was the end of the line, that she had failed the mission and was about to die.

Suddenly the shadows enveloped her and then there was nothing.


	4. Chapter 4

"All fleets! The Crucible is armed. Disengage and head to the rendezvous point."

"I repeat: Disengage and get the hell out of here!"

A haggard squad of three turian soldiers and two humans almost glanced skyward as Hackett's orders were relayed to their hardsuit comms. If all went well, the fleets withdrawing to the edge of the system would return after a little while. But that was a big "if". The entire war hinged on what was happening in orbit at that very moment, and no one down on Earth could do anything more than try to survive the Reapers' ground forces long enough to see whether the Crucible worked.

They couldn't afford to look up. Four assault rifles continued firing in arrhythmic bursts punctuated every two or three seconds by a sniper rifle's report.

Despite the discipline they were clinging to and the knowledge that their respective ships intended to come back for them, the soldiers—Tarnen Rikos, Igara Pel, Wesk Kelkarr, Paul Laurence, and Marissa Cartwright—felt a brief twinge of abandonment. The idea that there were no more friendly ships in the heavens...was especially unsettling for the turians, who might face starvation if the fleets didn't manage to return. But the feeling quickly fell to the wayside amidst ongoing combat. Husks were all around and there was no shortage of marauders. Wesk was popping the marauders' heads with his sniper rifle as fast as he could and everyone else was focused on the husks, except for Laurence who was keeping an eye on Wesk's back and also Wesk's supply of thermal clips.

They had been three separate, larger squads when they were shuttled in. Laurence and Cartwright were both Alliance marines, but they had been attached to different cruisers. Tarnen, Wesk, and Pel came from the same carrier but Tarnen and Wesk hadn't even known Pel before running into her and Laurence. Which pair had rescued the other at that point was a matter of debate during the few moments of downtime they could catch. So far, no one had talked about what exactly had happened to their original squads. Cartwright had joined them less than an hour ago, ducking unceremoniously into the cover they had been holding at the time.

Avoiding banshee and brute hotspots had gradually driven them toward the Citadel beam. It wasn't a particularly safe area, but it was very open in the middle with good cover at several points around the perimeter. A decent place to settle in for a few minutes, do some damage to the enemy, then retreat and circle wide around to another position. The alternative was to try to get past at least three banshees and at least four brutes, all of which were moving through a patch of ruins that limited range and movement as much as it offered cover. They had a navpoint for a triage camp, but until conditions changed it may as well have been on Luna.

So there they were, crouching beneath a scorched vehicle wedged tightly between slabs of concrete, their backs to a hill of miscellaneous debris, a fallen column providing frontal cover and beyond that the open area that led to the beam. Under lurid blue light, husks charged dumbly into the firing line. Laurence thought he could almost imagine that the beam's glow was moonlight if he squinted, but he wasn't about to test the idea. The marauders were a little more savvy than the husks, but so far they simply hadn't gotten very close before being taken down.

Seconds before Hackett's order came through, shadows on the field had shifted, first growing shorter, then longer, then returning to normal in the space of an instant as a pulse traveled down the beam. This was immediately followed by the sound of some rubble collapsing very close to the beam. The squad couldn't actually see the bottom of the beam from where they were holed up, nor the source of that noise. Husks were sparse at the moment but a banshee had just entered the field. All five crouched low, checked their clips, glanced at each other for affirmation, then popped up to start chipping away at the banshee's barrier.

Noticing a circle of red blooming in the night sky and rapidly expanding in all directions, the squad promptly ducked back down, watching. The red wave rushed toward them and their hope soared as it engulfed the entire area without harming them and then swept the horizons.

Pel signalled the rest to stay put while she peeked over the fallen column.

The set of her mandibles looked grim even to the humans after she'd gotten a look.

"They're still there," she hissed.

Narrowed eyes and lowered browplates. Tight frowns and rigid mandibles.

"Cleanup time, then," Tarnen declared, optimistically choosing to assume that the Reapers themselves had been destroyed and the ground forces were just remnants.

With renewed determination, the squad opened fire on the banshee that was now only halfway across the field.

Soon Tarnen shouted above the din of the guns, "Tell me again why you didn't bring biotics to this party, Cartwright."

Cartwright's grunt of grudging amusement was inaudible. "Well excuse me for not being exposed to eezo in utero!"

Wesk took up Tarnen's line of banter between shots. "Statistically... Shouldn't we have a biotic with us? ...And shouldn't they be a woman?"

Laurence and Pel ducked to reload, followed by Tarnen and Cartwright and one of Wesk's much more frequent reloads. In the two seconds that they were all behind cover, Cartwright smirked at Wesk and Tarnen. "The asari screw those statistics just by existing and you know it."

"Besides," Cartwright shouted as they resumed firing. "Why shouldn't Pel be the biotic?"

"If she were biotic—" Tarnen began.

"—I wouldn't be here," Pel finished reflexively. A moment later she revised, "Or maybe I would. But most of the turian biotics are fighting on Palaven. 'Statistically' I wouldn't be here."

The banshee's advance was slow, to the squad's wary relief. From time to time it teleported a short distance, but usually just to one side or the other instead of coming closer: an annoyance that wasted a little of their assault firepower and once one of Wesk's shots, but preferable to the alternative. It would only take three more headshots to fell the thing, Wesk estimated. One. Two. He was riding out recoil when the banshee launched a biotic attack in his direction, but rather than duck he stubbornly lined up the last headshot.

Laurence grabbed Wesk's shoulder and pulled him down. The banshee's missile-like bundle of biotic energy passed above their heads a second or two later. With a scowl Laurence shouted, "Don't get yourself killed now of all times!" Tarnen lended a disapproving glance of his own to Laurence's rebuke.

"I was going to make the shot and then take cover," Wesk argued. "There was time!" In truth, though, he wasn't a hundred percent sure of that and was grateful to Laurence. He readied his rifle once more and sighted the banshee. To his surprise, a husk was climbing the banshee's body and the banshee was attempting to tear the husk off. Another husk joined in, then another, clawing their way up to the banshee's head. Wesk didn't have a clear shot anymore, but the banshee was so distracted now it hardly mattered. He kept his sight trained on it, though, while his comrades mowed down a few husks that were more interested in them than in the banshee. Once those were taken care of, they got rid of the husk on the banshee's head. Immediately Wesk ended the banshee. As it exploded, the other two husks dropped to the ground. Before they could find another target, they too were mowed down.

Abruptly, the field was quiet. In the distance, another banshee's shriek was cut off and shortly afterward a harvester exploded.

The squad took a long look around. It seemed the Reaper troops had become completely preoccupied, and the more commotion they made fighting amongst themselves, the more they were drawn to each other and—in turn—the more they fought. The beam zone was deserted.

Tarnen volunteered to scout forward. Cartwright offered to climb the debris behind them and try to get a 360 from high ground, but Wesk co-opted the idea. With his sniper rifle he was better equipped to pick off any enemies he spotted. Cartwright agreed and stayed behind with Laurence and Pel while Wesk found his way up the hill. Doubting the stability of the rubble, he did his best to test each foothold and handhold before trusting it with his weight. This reminded him about the small collapse they had heard from the direction of the beam a few minutes ago. Pausing at a reasonably secure perch, he spoke into his comm, "Tarnen, do you read me?"

"I read you, Wesk," Tarnen responded.

"Remember that anomaly in the beam just before the...uh, just before the Crucible fired?"

"Yeah. I'm heading over there already. The enemy has forgotten all about this zone, and if anyone made it off the Citadel through that beam we may have a rescue op on our hands."

"Acknowledged," Wesk replied, continuing his ascent. Tarnen ordered the other three to form up on him. When Wesk reached the top of the rubble hill, he crouched low while readying his rifle and then craned his neck to get an overview of the surroundings without making too great a target of himself. There were no Reapers anywhere in sight. A harvester was circling a building to the south, but it was intent on whatever or whoever was holed up in and around that building. Checking his scope, Wesk could at first only see Reaper troops over there. Then he saw a few friendly figures take the opportunity to quietly flee that area. There was no pursuit, aside from one marauder that gave up when the friendlies left its line of sight and a husk crossed its path. He turned his attention to watching the squad's six.

 

* * *

 

"I'm getting life signs up ahead," Pel stated, studying her omni-tool as they walked. "One human. Weak, erratic. Suggest we pick up the pace."

They broke into a fast jog, Pel creating a shared navpoint for the location of the life signs before lowering her arm.

Closing the distance to the navpoint brought them very close to the beam. Its light leeched all color except for an unpleasant blue from the surfaces it bathed; it cast stark, quivering shadows and black silhouettes.

The navpoint itself indicated a debris-covered spot that looked no different from any other debris-covered spot. Pel checked her omni-tool. "They're one point five meters under," she explained, pointing to a broken piece of concrete held together by rebar that appeared to have slid down until coming to rest against some other detritus. "That debris is unstable. Must have been that collapse we heard that buried 'em."

"Shit," Laurence muttered.

"But they're still alive?" Tarnen asked.

"Barely," Pel answered.

Tarnen nodded without hesitation. "Where should we start digging?"

Pel took a few careful steps forward, her eyes flicking between the rubble and her omni-tool. "...Here," she said, stopping on the nearer right-hand side of the void her omni-tool was detecting. "The shortest distance between the surface and the space the individual is trapped in is here. The debris above them is supported primarily at three other points, so this is also a relatively safe approach. Join me, Rikos," she addressed Tarnen by his family name, "but step lightly."

Tarnen did so. Without taking his eyes off his feet he ordered, "Cartwright, Laurence, stay on guard." He was highest-ranking in the group and the others seemed to sense he knew what he was doing, so he had been giving orders for a while now. There was little written protocol for unexpected merging of small Hierarchy and Alliance infantry forces.

Going off of best guesses based on what data she could gather, Pel showed Tarnen what to move, her omni-tool's spotlight illuminating the work. Sometimes, instead of setting a particular chunk of concrete aside, they used it to shore up the hole they were making. They cooperated on heavier or more complicated lifts. After a minute and a half that felt much longer, they broke through. A large, twisted piece of metal blocked entry into the open space in which their target was trapped, but finally they could see the target.

Tarnen's mandibles twitched when he saw the scuffed and scorched yet still distinguishable "N7" on the target's chestpiece.

"Spirits, is that—?" Pel murmured as she looked in over Tarnen's shoulder.

"Commander Shepard," Tarnen said, partly answering Pel and partly speaking to the dusty, bloody, unmoving, yet seemingly whole human.

Shepard's eyes opened and slowly focused on Tarnen, but she seemed to be verging on unconsciousness.

"We need to widen the space _under_ this strut... Until one of the humans can fit through," Pel decided. The humans were narrower around the shoulders. "We have to get her to the triage camp. Moving her is very risky, but leaving her here any longer is riskier. With enough medi-gel this might be doable."

"Cartwright, we're going to need you down here soon. Stand by," Tarnen quickly advised over comm before starting to dig again. With Pel's guidance he hollowed out a crawlspace that was wide enough on the inner end to permit turning Shepard without twisting her body. They would need that leeway in order to pull her through the crawlspace as safely as was possible under the circumstances.

When Tarnen withdrew and Cartwright entered the hole, Pel briefed her. "Use all of your medi-gel and this too. Apply to bleeding wounds first. Try not to change her posture as you move her. All I can tell for certain is that she is low on oxygen due to blood loss and a collapsed lung, but there are likely multiple internal injuries as well as extremity injuries." Evidently, egress from the beam was not gentle. She gave Cartwright her own supply of medi-gel as well as Tarnen's. Cartwright nodded, tucking the medi-gel packs under one arm and raising her helmet's transparent faceplate to tuck away an errant lock of blond hair before crawling in.

It was tricky to maneuver inside the "void", but Cartwright was diligent. When she was done Shepard was almost covered in medi-gel; it was just laid on thicker in some places.

The inert Commander to whom everyone in the squad owed something was then eased through the crawlspace and up to the surface via the combined efforts of Cartwright and Pel, who then helped keep her posture stable while Tarnen picked her up and carried her. They immediately moved out in the direction of the triage camp, Wesk keeping to the various forms of high ground he could find in order to monitor a wider radius around them and make optimal use of his specialties. Laurence became their primary close-range defense, though Pel and Cartwright kept their guns up as well.

They encountered little opposition. The husk, marauder, and brute corpses were countless, many having been killed by the local resistance or by Hammer forces like them but many having killed each other as well. Remnants were easily caught off guard and often found in bad shape. Along the way they joined a group of seven humans, gathering from quick on-the-go introductions that three considered themselves resistance fighters and the other four were basically non-combatants who had just been trying to survive up until now. The enlarged group attracted the attention of a brute at one point but with three assault rifles, five pistols, and a sniper rifle it was taken down fast.

Weary and frayed though the civilians were, they indulged in many bouts of hushed chatter over how they'd celebrate; everyone was beginning to realize that the war was over. The Reaper troops were a problem, but they were completely disorganized and, as Tarnen had remarked earlier, fighting them was just cleanup; they would not be replaced. The mood of "coming out on the other side" was infectious and, though the soldiers remained alert, they joined the banter from time to time. By some unspoken, instinctive consensus, topics were kept steadfastly lighthearted. Distraction from reasons to grieve was thus maintained all the way to the triage camp.


	5. Chapter 5

Two doctors, one former nurse, one pre-med student, a Sentinel, and a handful of civilians who had basic first aid knowledge. With more and more people arriving at the triage camp, they were overwhelmed.

The camp had been established several days ago, but the original occupants had been forced to abandon it when the battle for Earth began in earnest and the Reaper presence in this part of London reached an all-time high. Among that group had been a human doctor who survived long enough to return five hours ago with an entire platoon of Alliance marines. He had managed to convince the right people that such a reallocation of manpower was warranted, that by retaking the camp they could prevent many more casualties than would be incurred by the effort. Using the Hammer command base had been proposed, but there was not enough room, and the terrain there did not permit a defensible expansion. The triage camp was well-positioned if provided a couple squads of infantry. Indeed, once it was secured, a quarter of the platoon was able to return to the command base and redeploy elsewhere. A go-ahead signal was tightbeamed to the command base, which then began distributing the triage camp's navpoint to all outgoing squads via secure close-range omni-tool to omni-tool shares. In turn, squads were able to use the navpoint to rescue civilians and, when medi-gel wasn't enough, get themselves patched up.

When the Crucible fired, another quarter of the platoon left to patrol a wider perimeter. Their places in the defense of the camp proper were taken by soldiers and resistance fighters who were too injured to head out but still able to tell friend from foe and shoot straight. Several motley groups, each composed of multiple military units' survivors, passed through. They dropped off injured or shellshocked members and even swapped people to optimize each group's combat effectiveness. Dr. Wainani could only really speak for himself, but he was astonished by the number of soldiers and fighters who were still willing to go out there and put themselves in harm's way and he suspected many of the other civilians also felt renewed admiration for their protectors. Though there were still Reaper-created abominations roaming the city and presumably the rest of the galaxy, the war appeared to be over. Surely, Wainani reflected, many of the soldiers wanted nothing more than to sit down, celebrate, and grieve. Deaths that occurred after the Crucible fired seemed...especially tragic. Then again, maybe that very thought was what motivated the offensive against the Reapers' revenants.

It was also possible that some folks just didn't know what to do anymore beyond fighting, but Wainani pushed that possibility out of his mind. It seemed an ungrateful thought somehow.

In truth he had little time to think about anything except for the tasks that came to hand. Mostly those tasks were procedures to stabilize patients in critical condition. The equipment in the camp was not the best by far and setting up sterile operating suites had been extremely difficult, especially at the speed they had done it. "Five hours ago" felt like a lifetime ago.

Hearing a familiar commotion at one edge of the camp, Wainani redoubled his focus on his current work. Shrapnel removal was one of the last things any doctor wanted to do under such tenuous conditions, but there was no choice: this woman had barely survived long enough to be brought in and would not live unless two of the dozen metal fragments lodged in her torso were removed. It was a terribly delicate matter to accomplish that without damaging nerves and muscles. He had succeeded with minimal collateral by all indications and was now properly repairing an artery he had earlier patched with surgical medi-gel. Without looking up, he gave the pre-med student Anna Riley a nod to go and deal with the newcomers.

 

* * *

 

Anna quickly made her way across the camp, doing a headcount of the new arrivals. She noted the human woman they carried and how poorly that woman looked. Options flashed through her mind and in the space of an instant she was prepared to make a choice based on the patient's condition.

Before Earth was invaded, she had had doubts about whether she could really handle the stresses of working in a hospital. She had decided to specialize in something that would let her work in a quiet office with appointments and no emergencies. Podiatry, maybe.

"Doctor! Are you a doctor?" one of the resistance fighters lingering beside the five turian and human soldiers asked loudly as soon as he noticed Anna. He was a young man with scraps of metal strapped onto his clothing as armor and a makeshift bandolier of baggies and cut-out shirt pockets held closed by quick-fasteners and hair clips. He was covered in soot and so were most of the others. It was odd and perversely inspiring how everyone looked the same with a layer of ash and grime all over them. Before she could reply to his question, one of the human soldiers—the bloke—spoke up: "We have Commander Shepard here!" Someone added, "She's not going to last much longer!"

Anna had surprised herself by turning out to be quite good in a crisis. Days when she was the only medic around and had to deal with things not at all covered by her schooling were rough. Sure, she'd had a few cries, but only when things calmed down for a little while. In the midst of things, her head stayed level.

"The doctor's over there," she said briskly, turning on her heel and motioning for the turian carrying Shepard to follow her. The name drop had her reeling a little bit, but it didn't change anything that had to be done in the next minute. Dr. Wainani was still working on Jane Doe but he wouldn't be for much longer and Dr. Vayu, a turian whose knowledge of treating humans only went so far, wouldn't be able to save Shepard.

"You with the omni," Anna said over her shoulder to another of the turian soldiers—a woman, as it happened. "Been scanning her? Tell me more about her condition."

Anna was given a quick rundown of the state Shepard had been found in and how she'd done since then. They laid her in an operating suite and then someone led them away while Anna hooked the patient up to life support and monitoring before seeing about getting some of the armor off. Nick, one of the people volunteering first aid and general assistance, popped by to see if a message needed to be taken to one of the doctors or if there was anything else he could do.

"Yeah get Dr. Wainani and if he's not finished get him anyway, we haven't got time."


End file.
